I have it. It's pretty good. There are issues currently with matchmaking when you have a large party, but the overall game is good. You get six characters to start, out of twenty-six. Every two ranks you unlock an additional "loadout" which allows a different set of command abilities, potions, relics, and gems. Command Abilities are the same across every character; usable every two to three minutes, they include powers like heal, heal over time, temporary damage shields, ability power boosts, summoning additional archers, balrogs, ents, and running really fast. Potions are consumed as you use them and are ten to twenty second buffs sorted into five categories and three tiers. You get them as rewards for playing, or you can buy them with coins you gain from winning a match. A low level potion might increase your damage and lifedrain by ten for twenty seconds, a high end version of the same potion would be double that. Relics and gems are socketed into your belt. Your belt is seven gem sockets long. Relics are from 2-4 sockets long, and you put them in your belt and put the gems in over them. Gems are in five varieties and pretty basic, faster cooldowns, more damage, higher chance to critical hit, damage resistance, faster movement. Relics, on the other hand, can provide boosts to the previous types of bonus, or they can give you things like 90 ability power per opposing player kill or double the attack speed of your minions within ten meters when you strike an enemy turret. The gem sockets become active as you level up in each match, and the relics become active when you uncover the entire relic by levelling in the match. A two slot relic kicks in at level 4, whereas a four slot relic in the first position kicks in at level eight, but tends to have a much more powerful effect. Every playable character has four skills, three normals and one ultimate, in addition to a character specific passive effect, and stats that raise as you level in the match. You can play as Gandalf, there is voice chat. More characters will be released as the game continues. You can buy a season pass to get the first eight new characters or you can just stick with unlocking the original twenty-two by using five thousand coins that you earned from winning a match per unlock. There are five free different playable characters per week that rotate for people who would rather spend their coins on relics and gems. You also get relics for completing all ten of a particular characters challenges. Like I said, it is fun, there is a free demo.
I'm trying to imagine the LoL community...distilled through xbox live. I may have nightmares for the rest of my life.
The community is actually totally normal. You can only talk to your team, the other side can't say anything to you during the match or after.
The games are about twenty minutes, so a lot faster than the hour long LoL and other games. And land sakes, the community is normal. I haven't heard anyone being rude to anyone the entire time I have played, and I am already max level. The only downside to the game right now, and I have played a lot of the competitors offerings, is that the matchmaking is slow and tends to drop and break parties of three or four. If you are ever playing a game and it drops everyone but you, the game basically gives you three thousand gold for the mistake.
Hey guys, it's me again, talking to myself about a really fun PS3 MOBA. Guess what, me? I don't know, what? Did you get a parking ticket? No, I didn't. Well, what is it then? Guardians of Middle Earth is Free for Playstation Plus subscribers starting now.
I gave this a try the other evening. I definitely appreciate that the matches are faster than LoL, and I like the tower/barracks upgrade mechanic, but I found it visually hard to keep track of the champions among the soldiers, both friendly and hostile. So that was a bit of a downer. But what it comes down to for me is that the mechanics changes, different platform, and LoTR characters aren't enough to get me to pay for a MOBA when I can play the biggest game in the genre for free.
This doesn't seem to be true in North America. This week we got NBA Jam on fire or something, not guardians of middle earth.
Ahh, just Europe and Japan, then. As for CSPariah's comments, yeah, I didn't have that problem, but I am playing two feet away from a giant ass television. I am probably going to go blind.
Matches are twenty minutes, there's a single lane and a triple lane game. The fastest I have ever rolled over the competition in three lanes is seven minutes and five seconds, for one lane, about the same. Elite Battlegrounds games have no time limit, but tend to last twenty minutes, regular battlegrounds games are capped at twenty minutes.
It's quirky. I did one pvp match last night and my team got stomped; the enemy playes were all levels 2 and 3 and my team was all level 1s and 1 level 2. The experience gap showed. Did a couple of bot matches. Had one 1v1 where we were getting destroyed until the 3 really bad players all quit and then me and the other guy face-rolled.
